The crazed hatemonger arrested for stashing pipe bombs in his Brooklyn Heights apartment and scrawling swastikas on local synagogues has worked as a paid confidential informant for the NYPD.
The startling disclosure that the shadowy Ivaylo Ivanov, 37, was employed as a witness for hire emerged in a public hearing in Brooklyn Criminal Court last Tuesday, where red-faced prosecutors were forced to drop charges against a businessman for alleged possession of stolen property after Ivanov’s involvement in the case surfaced.
In that case, Officer Eddie Lau, of Park Slope’s 78th Precinct, last July used Ivanov to launch a criminal case against Abdul Rehium, an Egyptian national who owns Computer Wiz, a Flatbush Avenue store that buys and sells new and used electronic gear, court records reveal.
Ivanov was used in a sting to sell allegedly “stolen” cellphones to Rehium.
But the case against Rehium, 53, was tossed last week after it surfaced that the informant was Ivanov, a suspect in many crimes.
For example, Ivanov was a suspect from the start when spray-painted, scrawled and scratched swastikas were discovered in 23 locations, including homes, synagogues and playgrounds, in Brooklyn Heights in September. The neighborhood was also littered with hateful fliers, including one that read, “Kill All Jews.”
Ivanov was finally pinned to the crime after he was nailed in the pipe-bomb case Jan. 20.
After Ivanov accidentally blew off part of his finger in his Remsen Street apartment, investigators found seven functional pipe bombs, as well as a cache of weapons, including a shotgun, a 9 mm handgun, a silencer and a crossbow, in the home.
It was unclear why Ivanov, a Bulgarian national, had the explosives and weapons. He told cops he once worked for Israel’s spy agency, the Mossad.
In announcing Ivanov’s arrest, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly indicated that cops had recruited him as an “informant” to try to trip him up and nail him in the anti-Semitism case.
Kelly did not mention that Ivanov was allegedly used as an informant in other cases.
Ivanov is being held on $300,000 bail on the weapons and bias charges, which could land him behind bars for 25 years to life.